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| The Rogue Valley Blues Festival by Bill Varble  There are rootsy musicians, and there are roots musicians. David "Honeyboy" Edwards is the real roots deal. Now 90, the acoustic guitarist played with Robert Johnson in the 1930s, was knee-deep in the Chicago blues scene of the 1950s and has been performing ever since. Edwards will headline the Sixth Annual Rogue Valley Blues Festival when it rolls into Ashland on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 13-15, with main events at the old Ashland Armory and other venues all over town. Also headlining are Little Charlie and the Nightcats."He backed EVERYBODY in the 1940s and ‘50s," bluesman and blues historian Michael "Hawkeye" Herman says of Edwards. Herman will be Friday’s master of ceremonies. "What amazes me is that he’s better than ever. He could have stopped learning, but he never did," adds Herman. The festival will spotlight a wide array of blues, from the acoustic roots of Edwards to the Chicago jump blues of Charlie Baty and company, alias Little Charlie and the Nightcats. The event will begin with an acoustic show planned for Friday at the armory. Doors will open at 6 p.m. for a barbecue, and the music will start at 7:30 p.m. Edwards, a native of the Mississippi Delta, has lived in Chicago since the 1950s.A member of the Blues Hall of Fame and an author, he is one of the last of the original generation of acoustic Delta blues players. He’ll perform with long-time musical partner Michael Frank on harmonica. Herman says he shows no signs of slowing down. "He’s doing 12 gigs on the West Coast, and he just did a festival in Iceland," Herman says. He says Edwards has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts because the blues has morphed from a music of juke joints and bawdy houses to a thing of festivals and cruises. "There are 400 blues festivals," Herman says. "Guys like Muddy Waters never saw that." Also performing Friday night will be Mary Flower, a singer, finger-style guitarist and a master of lap slide guitar. Walker T. Ryan will open the show. Ryan’s mix of obscure classics and originals make him one of the favorite blues performers on the West Coast. If Friday is about roots, Saturday is about rockin’, with Little Charlie and the Nightcats, Ellen Sheeley and The Core and Papa Keith Liddy and the Washington Street Gang. Doors will open at 6 p.m. for a barbecue, with Liddy kicks off the music at 6:30 p.m. In a recording career stretching over two decades, the constants for Little Charlie and the Nightcats have been Charlie Baty’s guitar and Rick Estrin on harmonica and lead vocals. Baty’s biting licks and Estrin’s devil-may-care swagger are grounded in electric urban blues, but also mix in soul, jump blues and even a bit of Western swing. Sheeley was the leader of Blues X-Press in the 1990s. Her new band has Andy Piementel on keyboards, Mark Stever on drums, Chris Graves on guitar and John Trujillo on bass. Papa Keith Liddy and the Washington Street Gang mix Delta blues with R&B and feature Liddy on guitar and vocals, Jeff Fretwell on bass, Dave Hampton on keyboards and Ritch Dimond on drums. Youth will be served, and that means Ben Rice and the Youth of Blues will perform from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Nominated for Band of the Year by the Portland Cascade Blues Association’s Muddy Awards, the band is led by 17-year-old Ben, who plays lead guitar and writes most of the music. He has been playing around the Northwest since he was 9. The band has played the largest blues festivals in the Northwest over that past couple years. As a part of the festival, both Alex’s Restaurant and Standing Stone in Ashland plan free shows from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday with blues artists such as Tim Church, David Speigel, Jerry Zybacn, Jim Roy, Pete Herzog, the Southern Oregon Blues Band and others. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |